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Former first lady Laura Bush walks Monday down the corridor of the Texas Rose Garden, a similar walk one made at the White House, with Herb Sweeney, landscaping project manager from Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, right, and Mark Langdale, president of the George W. Bush Foundation, at the still-under-construction George W. Bush Presidential Center.

Former first lady Laura Bush walked into the Texas Rose Garden at the George W. Bush Presidential Center and took in a view that, in many ways, encapsulates the lives of her and her husband.

Off in the distance, the downtown Dallas skyline shined in the morning sun, a gleaming reminder of their current home. Through the doors to her right was a replica of her husband’s workspace for eight years: the White House Oval Office.

Directly in front of her, a 15-acre park filled with native grasses, flowers and trees signaled deeper roots: the Crawford ranch where the Bushes escape the hustle and bustle and the West Texas prairie where they grew up.

Laura Bush described the live oaks, cedar elms and red buds brought in from their ranch’s tree farm. And then as she explained how the center will collect rainwater in a giant cistern so it can be recycled, she recalled how her mother kept a large trash can in the back yard to do just that.

“In case there was ever a rain, she put it out right under the roof to gather rainwater that she just used to water house plants,” Bush said.

That personal connection with elements both big and small came through Monday as Bush provided a sneak peek of the complex’s nearly complete landscaping and grounds.

The Bush Center, which includes the archives, museum and public policy institute, will open April 25 on SMU’s campus. With much of the construction finished, officials are preparing to bring in artifacts and install exhibits.

But outside, where Bush ticked off plant types with the savvy of an expert gardener, it’s simply time to wait.

Workers just finished planting the last wildflower seeds – bluebonnets, of course. A blend of native turf, designed to mimic drought-resistant buffalo grass, is taking hold along the gravel walkways.

And with trees from the Crawford ranch now spreading roots, Bush said she hopes the complex – both in full bloom and in between seasons – will provide a true Texas experience for tourists and locals.

“This isn’t the White House. This is not Washington weather,” she said.

“We wanted to have this fit into a Dallas landscape, into a Texas landscape.”

Many institutions – particularly those with large, public spaces – are pushing for sustainability these days, and the Bush Center is seeking platinum Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

That involves design principles, such as solar panels that both produce energy and heat the water used inside, large overhangs that shade the building’s windows, and locally sourced materials, including limestone from around Georgetown.

Given the Bushes’ focus on the topic, that also means creating an aesthetic that might inspire Texans to wean themselves from perfectly manicured, water-hogging lawns.

There’s native, drought-resistant plants chosen with the help of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas at Austin. An irrigation system that relies on recycled rainwater rather than Dallas city water.

And a topography of rolling hills blocks noise from North Central Expressway and helps create ecosystems that include wet prairies, creek beds and wildflower meadows.

“It won’t have a clean golf course look, actually,” Bush said. “There will be seasons when it will look weedy. But just as one wildflower bloom finishes, hopefully another one will start.

“It will look really lovely.”

Bush and Mark Langdale, president of the George W. Bush Foundation, also offered some insights into the building, which is poised to receive its certificate of occupancy on Election Day.

The center’s Freedom Hall will feature stone from Tunisia, a nod to the Arab Spring demonstrations that began in 2010. At the Decision Points Theater, visitors will make their own decisions on how they would respond to events like Hurricane Katrina, the war in Iraq and the financial crisis.

And sitting in the Texas Rose Garden, an interpretation of the famous White House spot, Laura Bush envisions visitors taking a moment in the quiet to reflect on the preceding exhibits about the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“It will be very, very affecting,” she said. “It will bring back a lot of memories for people who were alive on Sept. 11, and what it was like.”

But Bush also hopes visitors will look out on the prairie-land park – by the spring opening, full of wildlife and blooming plants – and feel renewed and refreshed.

Even the former first lady, who’s been involved in the park’s planning from the earliest stages, seemed to receive a boost Monday when she learned a red-tailed hawk had taken up residence in a nearby tree.